Winners The Same But Board Won't Certify Race

November 15, 1986|By Lynne Bumpus-Hooper of The Sentinel Staff

TITUSVILLE — Although a re-count Friday in the Cocoa City Council race did not change the winners of the Nov. 4 election, city canvassing board members still refuse to certify the results until they are allowed to count the ballots by hand.

In the re-count, conducted by Supervisor of Elections Shirley Baccus, the five candidates for council Seat 2 finished in the same order as in the Nov. 4 count. Ray DeBord defeated Rudy Stone for the seat by the same eight-vote margin, but both candidates picked up one additional vote.

The re-count also had an additional absentee ballot, apparently cast for George Harrell, according to the totals.

Cocoa officials, who said Friday they will continue their push to have the ballots counted by hand, will appear Monday before Circuit Judge Dean Moxley to try to resolve a number of questions about the election.

The winner of the council Seat 4 race, Betty Woehle, is protesting the canvassing board's decision not to let her sit on the council until they have conducted their count. Incumbent J.L. Smith is asking for a re-count in the contest he lost to Woehle by 30 votes.

Smith said he is due a re-count because he lost by less than one-half of 1 percent margin. Baccus has denied that re-count because she said the margin is larger based on the total Cocoa vote. Smith is basing his figures on only the votes cast in the Seat 4 race.

Baccus said Friday that she will not turn the ballots over to Cocoa's canvassing board because state law stipulates they remain in her custody.

She described the variations in totals as ''minor'' and said they could have been caused by dust covering the punched holes in ballots or by ballots that were not properly punched.

Stone, who witnessed the re-count, said he will not accept the results until the votes are hand-counted. He questioned Baccus repeatedly Friday about the method in which the absentee ballots were stored before they were counted Nov. 5. Stone was winning the race over DeBord by six votes when all the precinct votes were in, but the absentee count on the next day turned the tables.

Stone said he was put off by Baccus three times the morning after the election when he arrived to witness the absentee count.

''Those ballots sat there on a table all morning long with the lids of the ballot boxes popped up about 2 inches. Anyone could have put extra ballots in or taken ballots out. They were not secure,'' Stone said.